


Ricochet

by annundriel



Series: Tipping Point [2]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2014-10-17
Packaged: 2018-02-21 11:56:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2467469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annundriel/pseuds/annundriel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“If you didn’t want to be led, you shouldn’t have made it so easy.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ricochet

The skin on the back of Fenris’ neck prickles. He doesn’t have to turn around to know Anders has—after what seems like weeks—entered the Hanged Man. He isn’t sure if Anders has been avoiding him, or if it’s simply been bad timing on their part, but they haven’t shared the same space without it being on some kind of mission with Hawke and his compatriots since those days in the mountains.

It’s strange how things can change, things Fenris would have claimed were set in stone. It wasn’t long ago he would have considered Anders’ avoidance _good_ timing. Now, though, his skin itches with something other than annoyance whenever Anders is near. Now when he feels Anders heal him from across a fight, his skin tingles and he thinks of the way Anders held his hips, the way he touched his cock. 

The way he’d turned away when Fenris had reached for him after, ready to reciprocate. Happy, even, to do so. He hadn’t kissed Anders only to—what would Isabela say?—throw him a bone. Anders doesn’t need things like that from him, and they both know it; Fenris does not do pity. No, after Anders had kissed him just outside these walls—kissed and run, Fenris had found himself…considering. A part of him had been repulsed—a mage, _this_ mage, an abomination. But at the same time, _this_ mage, Anders. Anders who talks kittens with Merrill and can, Fenris can admit, hold his own in a fight. Who was a Grey Warden, he hears from Isabela, and surprisingly flexible. Who brazenly flirts and then blushes and apologizes for it.

Fenris finds, amazingly, that while he hates _what_ Anders is, he doesn’t hate _who_ he is.

After so long, it’s an exasperating revelation.

And Anders had kissed him as though he was desperate for it, pushing through Fenris’ immediate fight reaction and leaving him wanting in the dark, wondering what in the name of the Maker had just happened.

He’d offered more because he wanted more. Because he needed to know what else might have been hiding between them, buried by animosity. He was under no illusions about their feelings for one another—bare tolerance, mostly—but from what he’d heard from Isabela, it had sounded like Anders could be an…enjoyable time.

So Fenris had bided his own, letting Anders’ actions dictate his at first, setting his distance. He’d watched and he’d wondered and eventually, he’d decided to act.

That had not gone the way he’d expected. Well, it had, up to a point. Anders was pliant, agreeable, blessedly _quiet_ once Fenris told him to be. And, by the Maker, Isabela had not been exaggerating when she said Anders was talented with more than just healing.

In the Hanged Man, Fenris shifts.

He’d come, he’d come with stars behind his eyes and Anders’ hair beneath his palms and then Anders had pulled away. He’d pulled away and told Fenris to _rest_ , that he’d take first watch, as though Fenris would have compromised them in a place that required _first watch_. He’d been confused and livid and, this would have been most surprising only months ago, disappointed. But he’d listened, not saying a word, and tucked himself away. Watched Anders across the campfire as he sat and tied back his hair again, long fingers working nimbly by touch. He’d watched the flames play over his features, light and dark, and wondered what really went on behind those eyes. Anders wasn’t nearly as tractable as he seemed around Hawke; Fenris knew this from personal experience. He was stubborn and argumentative and up for a fight, and Fenris can recognize, in retrospect, perhaps part of the reason for his continued dislike—once he’d gotten used to the…abomination—was the fact that they were simply too much alike. Too aware of slights and injustices, too ready to challenge anyone who seemed like they might stand against their cause.

Fenris doesn’t have to like him to…appreciate that. Or him.

And he would have, if only Anders had let him.

He glances up as Anders pulls out a chair and sits across the table from him. He looks rougher around the edges than usual, hair a bit longer, stubble prominent. Fenris has felt the prickle of that stubble against his chin, his palms, his cock. It had been…electrifying.

Anders’ lips are chapped, and Fenris remembers what they had felt like, too, though they’d been smooth then. He wonders if this in part explains Anders’ absence in most things. If he’s too busy to attend to Hawke when he can’t even attend to himself. It’s hard to read a person when you only ever see them across a brawl.

Fenris pulls from his flagon and watches Anders, who flags down a barmaid and orders food. When he’s done, his eyes pass over Fenris, fleeting, and then he’s looking to Varric and Isabela, who are discussing…Fenris doesn’t know; he stopped paying attention when Anders walked in. Color rises high on Anders’ cheeks.

“You’ve made yourself scarce,” Fenris says.

Anders glances at him, then down at the table. He picks at a splinter with his nimble fingers. “I’ve been busy,” he says. “Don’t think it was because of you.”

Fenris chuckles. “I wouldn’t dream of it.” Except that he has, he’s wondered if the distance was his doing, if Anders thought at all of finding release with him again, whatever form it might manifest in. 

Behind him, Hawke enters. Fenris can tell by the calls of greeting and the way Anders stiffens, sitting taller in his chair. The color in his cheeks deepens.

“Anders!” Hawke calls as he approaches. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here. I’m glad you could—”

“I was just leaving.” He pushes his chair back with a scrape, and Fenris is staring, surprised and not at all surprised at the same time. His food hasn’t even—

Anders is halfway across the tavern when Isabela sighs. “Looks like someone has a broken heart.”

Fenris watches as Hawke takes Anders’ seat and shrugs. “It’s not my fault.”

“Oh, no, of course it’s not,” Varric says. “You only flirted with him for three years. That _definitely_ isn’t leading him on.”

“I flirt with everyone!”

Isabela smirks at him, and Fenris thinks he sees something sad behind it. “Anders isn’t like the rest of us,” she says. She takes a drink. “This is why you stick to flirting and fucking, no feelings.”

Fenris stands as Anders’ food arrives and Hawke claims it, slipping away as they talk. He’d seen the way Anders was around Hawke; his feelings had been fairly obvious. He’d have thought Hawke would have—

Anders isn’t far from the Hanged Man when Fenris steps outside. He’s seated on some of the low stone steps nearby. His posture speaks of defeat, shoulders hunched and head in his hands. Fenris makes no noise as he approaches, but somehow Anders knows he’s there anyway.

“Come to gloat?” he asks, not moving.

Fenris stops a few feet away. “Excuse me?”

When Anders looks up, his face is more angry than anything. “You heard me. I can only imagine what was said in there, and now you’ve come to rub salt in the wounds. The pathetic mage, unable to—”

“You do your friends a disservice to assume they are speaking ill of you.” He pauses. “By ‘friends,’ I mean Varric and Isabela. Quit wallowing in your imagined defeat.”

Anders glares, and it’s been a while since Fenris has seen that level of anger from him. “What do _you_ know about it?” he spits. “What do _you_ know about love or loss or—”

He stumbles as Fenris drags him up, hands fisted in Anders’ robes. “What do _you_ know,” Fenris snarls, lip curling, “about anything?” Releasing Anders with a shove, he watches him fumble for balance before losing it and falling back against the stone. The look of surprise on his face fills Fenris with cruel glee. Hawke isn’t the only one who can inflect pain, and Fenris won’t let Anders forget what they did or who they are despite it.

Anders had thrown him off his axis, then all but disappeared. It’s gratifying to know he can still make an impression.

But Anders doesn’t take long to bounce back. He’s on his feet in seconds, expression hardening. Bisecting his bottom lip, a line of blood appears. His tongue flicks out, licking it away. Suddenly, Fenris feels tired and—though still angry—sorry. Not for the needling or the push, no, but for Anders. It isn’t pity, exactly, but they’ve all been drawn in by Hawke’s magnetism. Fenris can’t blame Anders for being drawn harder.

Anders is poised for a fight, and Fenris will give him one if he really wants it, but not here. Instead, he snaps out a hand and grabs one of the rings adorning Anders’ robes, turns to drag him along.

Anders sputters. “What the—”

“If you didn’t want to be led, you shouldn’t have made it so easy.”

Anders doesn’t say anything after that, though Fenris can practically hear him seething. Good. Better anger than sorrow.

He drags him around the Hanged Man and down some stairs, around a corner. It’s quiet here, mostly, and dark—though Fenris can still make out Anders’ features. The smell of the water is stronger here. Fenris is not concerned they’ll be bothered, two men of their stature with weapons on top of the off-putting figure he knows he cuts. As soon as he stops, Anders bats his hand away. Rather like a cat.

Fenris smirks.

“You’re bloody infuriating, you know that?” he says. “I don’t know why I put up with you.”

“Because Hawke tells you to, and you do whatever Hawke says.”

The words hit a nerve, and they hit it _hard_. Anders’ face crumples, and he looks, again, truly heartbroken before turning away.

How hard would he have to push, Fenris wonders, before Justice made an appearance? Is it even listening? Does it care? Can it?

Fenris doesn’t, but he watches the features across Anders’ shoulders flutter slightly, watches the defeated, vulnerable curve of Ander’s neck. He’s felt that skin beneath his lips before, tasted the salt of it. The feathers, when he reaches out, are soft.

“Anders,” he says, and when Anders turns, he steps close, crowds against him so there’s no place left for him to go but here. Lifts up on his toes and fits his mouth to Anders’. Not to offer comfort, no, he’ll never admit to that, but an outlet. A sparring partner, a chess opponent, someone to fight and fuck and move on. Fenris can’t offer anything more—would certainly never offer _Anders_ more—but he can offer that, at least now.

It’s some sort of…progress, he supposes, though he doesn’t know how he feels about it.

Anders groans as soon as their lips touch, his mouth falling open and his hands coming up to clutch at Fenris’ hips, his back, his shoulders. His hands are desperate and his mouth is, too, and Fenris could be swept away by Anders’ current if he let himself, but one of them as to be in control, and Anders had taken that from him last time.

He sucks at Anders’ tongue, bites at his lips. Is surprised by the sounds Anders’ makes, wonton and needy, his voice as desperate as the rest of him as Fenris pushes him backward until he hits the wall with a grunt. Fenris pulls away then to witness the devastation.

Anders already looks wrecked. His eyes are dark and fathomless, his skin flushed. There is blood smeared across his mouth, blood Fenris tastes on his own tongue, metallic and foreign. On his cheeks, Fenris can still feel the burn of Anders’ stubble. Against his hip, Anders is already hardening. Reaching down, Fenris cups him, watches as his head tips back, his eyes closing even as his mouth falls open around a moan that makes Fenris’ own cock twitch.

“F—Fenris.”

“We’ve already established how bad we are with words,” he says. He squeezes Anders once before letting him go, waiting for Anders to open his eyes and look at him before continuing. “But I will take you home and fuck you until you take leave of your senses if you say the word.”

Anders blinks at him, once, and licks his bottom lip, a slow drag of tongue Fenris can’t help but follow.

“I think,” Anders says, his voice so rough Fenris barely recognizes it, “we’ve already done that. Yes.”

A heated look, and Anders leads him away, through the streets of Lowtown and Darktown to his clinic where he keeps rooms. It’s a long walk, but Fenris doesn’t mind; it gives him time to think, time to plan. He doesn’t know what exactly they’re doing, what’s changed so much that Fenris willing to follow Anders home and fuck him. He’s not just willing, though; he wants to. Wants to strip Anders bare and lay him out, make him pant and scream and come. Perhaps it is an extension, a new iteration of how he’d felt originally, how badly he’d wanted to take Anders on one-on-one, to beat some sense and understanding into him. He could be an awkward ally even while being a convenient target.

Why things changed, though, why Fenris wants to take change the physicality of their relationship when he doesn’t normally do this with men…Fenris is at a loss to say. Anders had started it. Anders is the one to blame. Perhaps they’d each pushed the wrong—or right—buttons, simply poked and prodded, needled and annoyed until the only options were fight or fuck, and they do enough fighting anyway.

Fenris follows Anders through the streets, meets his gaze whenever he glances over his shoulder to check that Fenris is behind him. Smirks when it happens more than twice. Anders cuts a fine figure; Fenris doesn’t mind following him here.

His rooms, when they reach them, are simultaneously exactly what Fenris expected—shabby—and not at all what he expected—clean, and only slightly cluttered, mostly with books and papers, jars full of who knows what. There’s a smell in the air like herbs and incense and Anders, and Fenris realizes—in the few times he’s accompanied Hawke to the clinic—that he’s seen Anders use more than magic on his patients, that magic is sometimes his last resort. The realization gives him pause, and respect for the work Anders does here begins to bloom.

As Fenris surveys the room, taking in the desk and bookcases, a chest and worn rug, the bed, Anders hangs back by the door, light in hand. When Fenris turns to look at him, he flashes an awkward smile and moves forward, shoulders slightly hunched. The door swings shut, latching, and finally they are as alone as they were on that mountain.

Anders looks smaller than usual standing there by his desk, lamp in hand, and Fenris almost wants to throw his hands up in frustration because how can they ever get back to where they were, how can they find their momentum from moments ago, when Anders looks like _that_.

Fenris sighs, and takes the first step forward, then the next. He closes the distance between them. When he’s close enough, he takes the light from Anders, leans past him to set it on the desk. Deliberately crowds Anders’ space. Anders’ eyes are wide and dark, golden brown glowing in a ring around his pupils, watching his every movement. He looks like a trapped animal, though he’d said yes outside.

“Still taken leave of your senses?” Fenris asks, wanting to hear— _needing_ to hear it before he lays his hands on Anders.

Visibly swallowing, Anders nods and licks his lips, and Fenris remembers the feel of that tongue on the head of his cock, the way his lips fit so perfectly around the shaft.

Maker, Fenris wants to taste him, to _take_ him. He licks his own lips, eyes moving up to catch Anders’ on the way down. His heart is racing, his muscles tense as though he’s ready for a fight. He brushes a finger against Anders’ hand and that’s all it takes to ignite him, Anders springing forward, his hands on either side of Fenris’ face, his mouth hot and wet and demanding.

Fenris groans, clutching Anders’ waist as he stumbles backward. He struggles to retain his balance as he works to keep up with each thrust and parry of Anders’ tongue, each nip of his teeth. He thinks he’s going down—taking Anders with him—when his back hits a bookshelf, bottles rattling and clinking behind him. The grunt that escapes him doesn’t stop Anders, it doesn’t even slow him down. Fenris is glad of this. He isn’t here for care and soft touches, doesn’t want anything resembling softness to cloud their vision of what this really is—a volatile attraction.

And Anders? Anders needs a hard fuck to help clear Hawke from his head.

Anders’ mouth has moved, slipping from Fenris’ to bite along his jaw, to suck at his earlobe. Fenris’ fingers tighten, and he growls, baring his throat. Anders mouths at it, only hesitating when he reaches the lyrium.

“Can I?” he asks, and Fenris chuckles. Can’t remember the last time he was with someone so polite.

“If you like.”

Anders’ breath is rapid, tickling skin damp form his mouth. “Will it hurt?”

Fenris swallows, his skin aching in anticipation, his body craving. “They are sensitive,” he says. “but not always painful. I can handle it.”

“Of that I have no doubt,” Anders says, and Fenris can feel the shape of his smile against his neck. Is surprised by the rise of warmth in his chest at the compliment. He’s about to say something to squash that feeling when Anders’ nose brushes his neck where the tattoo begins, his lips following, and all thought—other than a single resounding _fuck_ —is banished from his mind.

The sensation goes straight to his cock, his body lighting up, nerve endings on fire. His knees feel weak, but Anders holds him up. Anders holds him up and sucks bruises into his skin, moaning like Fenris is the one doing this to him. If that’s what he sounds like now, Fenris can only imagine what he’ll sound like later, kneeling on his bed, Fenris’ cock in his ass.

His cock twitches at the thought, and he pushes Anders away, ignores the look of disappointment on Anders’ face. Instead, he reaches for Anders’ cock, watches as disappointment is replaced with pleasure, Anders’ eyelids fluttering. He bites his still-split lip.

“Enough,” Fenris says, needing to get his bearings, needing to take control. He pushes forward, into Anders’ space, is gratified when Anders steps back, his eyes glazed over. Fenris will certainly appreciate the view when they’re done.

He strokes Anders’ cock through his trousers, smirking when Anders’ head tips back, his mouth dropping open. Releasing him, Fenris goes to work on Anders’ many buckles and fastenings.

“With help,” he says, “I could have you undressed more quickly.”

Anders blinks at him a moment and then—of all things—blushes. But his hands join Fenris in their work.

“I could undress you instead?”

Fenris shakes his head. “Soon. After. The last time I let you unfasten anything of mine, you disappeared for weeks.”

Anders fumbles with a buckle and coughs. “I—well—”

“It’s in the past,” Fenris says, and Anders raises an eyebrow. He usually isn’t one to let things go, but he’s about to get what he wants anyway. Then it will be out of his system and he can stop wondering about Anders despite his loathing of mages.

Weapons by the door and fastenings undone, Fenris ignores whatever else they might say in favor of disrobing Anders. He hums his approval when Anders is naked from the waist up, taking in the dusting of pale ginger hair across his chest, the dusky pink of his nipples, the flush that goes from his cheeks to his neck to his chest. His shoulders are not quite as broad as his pauldrons make them look, and though Fenris thinks he can detect a hint of rib, Anders is finely muscled. His cock a mouth-watering bulge at the front of his trousers. Beneath Fenris’ palms, his skin is hot and smooth, his hair coarse as Fenris thumbs a nipple.

Anders shudders and reaches for him, his hands feeling impossibly large on Fenris’ hips. Fenris lets him pull him close, pull him over to the bed. Lets him start in on his clothing as Fenris divests himself of his gauntlets. They hit the floor with a clatter, and he kicks them under the bed. He’s learned the hard way not to stub his toes on them.

Making quick work of his clothing, Anders soon has him naked from the waist up as well. He can feel Anders’ eyes on him, following the lines that mark his skin. His eyes are wide and he reaches out, tentative.

“Andraste’s ghost,” he says. “I didn’t think—”

Fenris grabs his wrist, presses his palm to his skin. He doesn’t want Anders to think, doesn’t want to think himself, only to do.

The touch sears through him, as the touch of Anders’ mouth had. This time Fenris gives into the feeling, accepting the weakness in his knees and kneeling to mouth at Anders’ cock through his trousers.

Above him, Anders gasps, his hands falling onto Fenris’ hair. Fenris smirks against him before opening his mouth to suck gently at the head. Anders lets out a sound like he’s being torn apart, fingers clenching in Fenris’ hair before he apparently remembers himself and lets go.

“Sorry,” he says, fingers gentle, almost petting. “Sorry, I—”

Sitting back on his heels, Fenris unfastens Anders’ trousers. “You’re going to have to get over your aversion to touching me if we’re doing this.”

Anders’ forehead creases as he looks down. His fingers still carding through Fenris’ hair feel…nice, though Fenris refuses to examine that feeling. “I don’t have any problems touch— _fuck_.”

Fenris sits back again, eyeing the red mark blooming just above the Anders’ waistband. In a few hours, it will be an attractive, mouth-shaped bruise.

“You were saying?”

Anders fingers tighten lightly and he chuckles, a throaty thing Fenris can feel tumble through the air. “By the Maker, Fenris, just suck my cock.”

Surprised, Fenris laughs, tugs Anders’ trousers down his thighs. Admires his cock as it bobs free. He’d known Anders was well-endowed, not only felt the length himself, but also listened to Isabela’s enthusiastically lewd descriptions. Anders is large, and Fenris’ mouth waters. His blood has been hot since the Hanged Man, the first time. When Anders kissed him and fled. He’s hard now, his own trousers pulled tight as he kneels. He’s looking forward to this, to this and the subsequent release. To finally getting what he couldn’t help but consider since that night.

Wrapping a hand around the base of Anders’ cock, Fenris appreciates the thickness, the warmth of his skin, the weight of him. Anders’ breath catches, and Fenris leans in, head tilted to lick up the shaft only to close his lips around the head and suck. Anders’ resulting groan is shattering.

Fenris hasn’t done this with men—by choice—often, but he enjoys the way Anders’ fills his mouth, the taste of him on his tongue. The way his thighs are trembling. He also appreciates his willpower; at this point, Fenris would have given in and thrust, fucked his partner’s face. _Has_ done so. And Anders had taken it without complaint, had welcomed it, even. It intrigues him, on a distant level, but he’s not one to ask for that kind of abuse, he never had been.

He strokes Anders’ cock and pulls off, watches Anders’ face—slack with pleasure—as he licks his lips. “Turn around.”

He can see the exact moment his words register, Anders face—and shoulders and hands—tensing.

“I—what?”

“You heard me.” He strokes Anders’ cock slowly, drawing each pull upward out as long as he can. Anders shudders, and Fenris lets go. “Turn around.”

Anders blushes again, his face going bright. “You—I—You don’t have to.”

“You don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Anders scowls at him. Maker help him, it only makes Fenris want to fuck him more. “I have an idea. You don’t have to.”

“I don’t _have_ to do anything,” he says. “It is my choice.” Leaning in, he nips at the rise of Anders’ hip. “Turn around.”

He scowls for another moment, but then he does, sighing.

“Now what—”

A hand on the small of Anders’ back, Fenris pushes. Not hard; insistent. Anders groans, but goes, bending over, his knees pressed into the side of the bed, hands on the blankets to keep his balance.

His ass is impressive. Perhaps not so much as his cock, but very well made, firm and smooth and as finely muscled as the rest of him. Fenris tugs Anders’ trousers farther down his thighs.

“I could finish undressing,” Anders says, voice shaking slightly as Fenris runs his hands up the newly revealed skin, pushing pale ginger hair against the grain. He stops where Anders’ thighs meet his ass, hands pressed into the curve of skin and muscle. “I mean,” Anders continues, “I’ve still got my boots on.”

“No,” he breathes. “This will do.”

Spreading Anders’ cheeks, Fenris kneels forward to lick lightly at Anders. He chuckles when Anders jerks against him, can only imagine what it will be like to hold him down and fuck him. Enjoyable, he knows, for both of them. He can’t deny they have sparks. Anders will be responsive and _loud_ —Fenris has a feeling—and he will beg Fenris for release much as he’s begging for more now.

“Fenris,” he pants. “Fenris, I—f—fuck. Fenris, please, I—”

Fenris chuckles against him, and Anders keens, pushes back against Fenris’ tongue as he teases him, alternating between wet licks with the flat of his tongue and maddening presses forward with the tip. Anders is hot and tighter, and he grasps at the blankets when Fenris sits back for a moment to admire. On the bedclothes, there’s a dark spot where Anders’ cock has leaked. In the tight confines of his trousers, Fenris’ own cock demands attention.

“Do you have any oil?” he asks, voice rough, unused. “Salve?”

It takes Anders a moment to answer. Lifting a shaking hand, he points at the nearest bookshelf. “Top shelf,” he says. “The, uh, the blue bottle.”

“Don’t move.” Fenris stands. He pauses to watch for a moment, and Anders doesn’t move, though his muscles are trembling and sweat sheens his back. It’s promising that he’ll follow Fenris’ command here. Fenris can think of more than one way to test that. Perhaps later…

The bottle is on the top shelf, blue glass that reminds Fenris of the sea. It’s bulbous at the bottom, tapering into a skinny neck that’s corked. When Fenris picks it up, it’s only partially full, the contents sloshing.

“Anders,” he says, turning back, “what have you been up to?”

Anders is watching him over his shoulder, the look on his face hungry. “None of your business.”

Fenris smirks. Unstoppering the bottle, he sniffs, smells…nothing. He sniffs again, and no, it’s not nothing. The contents smell clean, a hint of something sweet he can’t place. Carefully, he pours some on his fingers, lets it slide between them. At the bed, Anders swears.

“For the love of—Fenris.”

It’s practically a growl. Gooseflesh travels across Fenris’ skin. He raises an eyebrow. “Yes?”

Anders glares at him. “Stop wasting time and fuck me.”’

Fenris shudders. “Are you complaining?”

“I am now, yes, get over here and—”

Fenris is there in a blink, slick fingers wrapping around the curve of Anders’ hip. It’s not a trick he uses often outside of battle, but it’s occasionally useful, and the sound of surprise Anders lets out makes his heart race. Leaning down, chest pressed against Anders’ back, he nips at the curve of a shoulder. “Like that?”

Anders groans. “Maker, yes, yes, like that. Fuck, Fenris, would you just—”

Fenris’ fingers press against his entrance, the tip of one slipping inside, and the sound—Maker, the _sound_ —Anders makes could crack the world open to its core. Fenris breathes deep, smelling Anders and sweat and the oil on his skin. He grins and pushes deeper, feels Anders shake and open around him, let him in inch by inch, one finger then two.

The sound he makes when Fenris retreats, straightening to add more oil, could break hearts.

“If I’d known you’d be like this,” Fenris says, fingers slick and crooked slightly in Anders’ ass. “I would have tracked you down weeks ago.”

Head hanging, Anders clutches at the sheets. “If I’d have—ah!—if I’d have known you’d be like this—f-fuck—I would have tried kissing you to shut you up years ago.”

“I would have killed you.” He withdraws his fingers almost completely, presses forward.

“You would have tried.”

Fenris laughs, amazed at how…how enjoyable this is, how light he feels. He would never have guessed, never have thought…

Setting the bottle on the floor, he uses his free hand to make quick work of the fastenings of his trousers. He pulls his fingers from Anders and finally, _finally_ touches his own cock. Pleasure surges through him and he sighs, eyes slipping closed. He hears Anders sigh in return and the bedclothes rustle.

“Fenris,” Anders says, voice quiet, breathless. “Please.”

The oil is slick on his fingers, cool on his skin. Anders body when he presses into it, savoring the way he relaxes around him, takes him in, is unbelievably hot. Fenris has to pause and breathe and swear as he pushes in, inch by inch until he’s seated fully, Anders’ clenching around him.

“Anders,” he breathes. “Anders. I—” His chest feels tight and his heart is racing and he was not expecting—fuck—he was not expecting this. Anders is tight and hot and rocking gently against him, a soft keening coming from the back of his throat, and Fenris wants….Fenris wants to flip him over, see his face, watch him come. Wants to feel it and see it and taste it, to know these things as he knows how Anders feels when he heals, how he looks in a fight, how his blood and sweat taste.

He watches the muscles of Anders’ back move as he fucks him, watches them move beneath skin that’s flushed and damp. Spreads a palm between his shoulders and breathes deep as Anders moans and lowers himself to his elbows, lets Fenris push him into the bed, ass in the air.

Closing his eyes, Fenris focuses, sets the pace. The rolling swing of his hips picks up, becomes staccato the harder Anders pushes back, the louder he moans. Fenris knows he’s close because he’s panting it, over and over, enthusiastic and lost to it. Fenris himself is not far behind and when Anders comes, ass clenching hard, voice raised with something unintelligible that may have been Fenris’ name, Fenris follows him over, voice hoarse, hands clutching. He opens his eyes, to see the lyrium etched in his skin glowing, fading.

Beneath his hand, Anders is shaking. For an instant, Fenris thinks that he’s lost control of himself and hurt him, that this was a mistake, that Anders was more fragile than he appeared. He’s about to ask when he realizes Anders is laughing, then thinks—again—this was a mistake.

“Something funny?” he asks, his cock slipping free as he pulls away. He’s still coming down from the moment, still catching his breath, but his heart is beginning to thud for entirely different reasons.

Anders winces, but doesn’t stop his chuckling. “Sorry, no, it’s just—“ He straightens partway and swears, hand going to the small of his back. “It’s just the, uh, release. Andraste’s knickers, Fenris, we should have done that ages ago.”

Fenris watches him as he straightens the rest of the way, his movements slow.

“I’m going to be so sore tomorrow,” he says, turning toward him. Fenris turns away and begins putting himself together, doesn’t look at Anders’ spent cock or his come on the bed, the bruise on his hip in the shape of Fenris’ mouth.

“Heal yourself,” he says, back turned. He feels….strange. His hands shake. He startles when Anders touches his arm and the lyrium glows bright again as he turns to face him.

Hands up—Fenris’ clothing in one of them—Anders steps back, a small crease between his brows. “I don’t want to.”

His voice is too soft and his eyes, even Fenris meets them, are too big and Fenris is leaving. He is leaving before Anders takes to following him around like a lost duckling. He isn’t supposed to be a replacement for Hawke; that had never been his intention.

He shrugs, taking his clothes from Anders and pulling them on, re-fastening everything quickly. He grabs his sword where it’s propped by the door. “As long as it doesn’t affect you in combat,” he says, and leaves.

He doesn’t flee, it’s not fleeing. But his head feels strange and his knees feel weak and when he closes his eyes he sees faces he shouldn’t remember and no matter how many times he presses his hands to his thighs he can’t forget the way Anders’ skin felt beneath them. Smooth skin and coarse hair, hard muscle and—

Fuck. His gauntlets are under Anders’ bed.

 _Fuck_.


End file.
